phonic helix board 17

by Phonic

Product Features

• Stereo USB Direct Connectivity to your computer
• 44.1 kHz S/PDIF digital output
• Five Mic/Line channels with inserts and phantom power
• Three stereo channels with 4-band EQ
• 3-band EQ with swept mid-range plus low cut on each mono channel

Product Details

• Item Weight: 15 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 15 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B0009QWAK8
• Item model number: Helix Board 17
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,916 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)
  • #81 in Musical Instruments > Recording Equipment > Mixers & Accessories > Mixers > Powered

Product Description

Get a quality front-end for your computer. Phonic Helix Board mixers are the newest experience in affordable, digitally-enabled mixers. Connect a Helix Board to your computer's USB port to get live, CD-quality sound (16-bit stereo with 44.1 kHz sampling rate). Low latency playback lets you record directly to your computer and monitor in real-time. Helix Board mixers assure perfect audio quality when multi-track recording by allowing you to monitor previously recorded audio files through your headphones while recording another track. The Helix Board 17 is a 17-Input compact mixer with five Mic/Line input channels, three paired stereo input channels and three stereo AUX returns. A S/PDIF output is incorporated into the mixer for connection to a variety of digital audio devices. It has main XLR and 1/4 outputs, two AUX sends, control room outs, and stereo RCA and mini stereo input/output jacks with trim control for level matching while recording. Helix Board mixers are compatible with most PC or Mac computers and no drivers are required. Combine the digital audio capabilities of the Helix Board 17 with audio workstation software, and there's no limit to what you can do.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ok Recording Interface, But Not The Best, February 7, 2006

By 

James Shannon Bussey (Mississippi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: phonic helix board 17

This and the other Phonic Helix boards look very appealing. Numerous outputs, efftect, mixer with built in firewire interface. It looks good and promising at first glance, but as anything else that is first produced there are problems. First The syncronizing software wasn't the easiest to install. Once I got it installed and got the mixer connected through the firewire interface, it seem to loose it's connection randomly, and most of the time it seemed to happen right in the middle of a recording. My biggest problem was the number of knobs and switches with a very generic owners manual. After I finally got it connected to my PC, it took forvere to get everything routed to where it should go. Then it literally took me another 30 minutes to get the headphones where the sound would come out. I just had a totally bad experience with this interface. Another thing was that it was very noisey. For an unpowered mixer it made an aweful lot of noise. I never could get the faders to work.

I will say this if you don't have the money to buy a firepod, and you have a bunch of time for trial and error, this is the device for you. I will say that the recording quality of this device was above average, it just took to much nonsense to get there.

4.0 out of 5 stars Best bang for the buck, January 21, 2011

By 

Dani - See all my reviews

This review is from: phonic helix board 17

I bought this unit quite awhile ago and no longer use it because I am now working with Pro Tools and use a 003 Rack + factory (almost $2,000 DAW piece). Before that though I worked with this mixer and tracked through it with Logic. For tracking, and considering the price of this unit it can't be beat. The processing built in is impressive and I find it to be better than the crappy plug-ins that come with the base models of whatever DAW you're using. I assume most people would be using this for tracking and not mixing something already tracked through another interface; which is the only reason I gave this a 4 and not a 5, it seems this unit doesn't have HUI so if you plan on hooking it up as a MIDI control to mix already recorded tracks you would be better going with a Mackie. Otherwise, Great unit for the price.